Spring
by TheFirstWaltz
Summary: White Day, senior year. Yuki has a lot of things to be thankful for. Challenge accepted. Yukiru. For adult readers only.


**This is a challenge that someone unintentionally issued to me that, eventually, I decided to undertake. Tohru and Yuki are just about the least sexual romantic pairing there has been since, well, I can't think of an example. It's easy to think of their shy, awkward behavior as the opposite to sensual because it's difficult to imagine Yuki and Tohru actually making it to the point of sex without having some kind of etiquette paralysis. Consider this a world where the curse is broken.**

 **Challenge accepted.**

 **So, as I'm writing this (2k and so far not even a kiss, God help me), it turns out I did research. Notes about that at the end.**

 **Warning: This story contains mature content. It is, basically, sex. My hope is that sex will be the least interesting thing happening, not the most. But as they say, sex sells. Even awkward Yuki and Tohru sex. Characters portrayed in this story are 18 and belong to Natsuki Takaya.**

 **Spring**

Though he would never admit it, the first thing Yuki usually thought about once he realized he had an erection was that Shigure would consider it a wasted opportunity. What was the point, Shigure would argue with the serenity of a sage, of giving a fisherman a plow? What was the point of giving Sohma Yuki a physically manifesting sex drive?

Living with a cousin eleven years older than him was somewhere between having an older brother and an uncomfortably _interested_ father, and it came as no surprise to Yuki that, one day while Tohru was out shopping, Shigure lay aside his newspaper and said solemnly, "I know that Aya-chan and I have not made the best role models, but if you're interested in men, Yuki, I support you."

Actually, it did come as a surprise. Yuki choked on his tongue trying to tell Shigure that he was wrong, albeit thanks for the support, and also he could crawl off in a ditch and die for thinking such a thing. His cousin watched him with elegantly arched brows, his lips pressed in too firm of a line to be serious – the cur was trying to keep from laughing! Yuki gave in to a fit of shallow coughing, gray eyes narrowed and glittering malignantly at Shigure all the while. The former dog cleared his throat comfortably – God damn him – and rustled his newspaper back into position. "Or maybe Yuki's not interested in anyone." He mused, almost to himself as if Yuki's inability to speak at the moment negated his presence. "It would certainly make sense of what the Flower says."

Thank heavens the coughing fit had reddened Yuki's face, because the effect of linking Tohru anywhere near a conversation about his sexual inclinations certainly would have been a lot more obvious otherwise. "…You didn't." He croaked.

Shigure's voice rose in pitch behind the newspaper: "Shigure-san, why doesn't Sohma-kun act like the guys in your books? Does it mean he doesn't…love me?" His voice dropped like a gavel. "You know, it's about time spring came for you, Yuki. Aya-chan and I are becoming concerned."

There were so many things going wrong that Yuki lost count. Tohru had read one of Shigure's perverted novels. Tohru thought that the perverted novel was how love was supposed to be between two young adults. _Shigure and Ayame had discussions about his sex life_. He swallowed on his sore throat and said, "It isn't any of your or Ayame's business. I'm not having this conversation." Maybe if he repeated those two sentences enough times, they would come true.

Spring had come for Yuki already. More than once. Mostly while he was asleep, apparently. It didn't matter what he did right before he fell asleep. Somehow it always ended up in the same place, the same way, with his hair riled up and his skin feeling velvety, like someone had stroked a fine layer of dust over it. And laundry he did himself. There were things he would never ask Honda-san to do, not even now.

And that was how it ended up being that Tohru saw sex as a normal expression of love, and how Yuki saw sex as an inconvenience. An embarrassing inconvenience.

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It wasn't that he didn't want to have sex with Tohru. Quite the opposite. It was that if one of them slipped into the bedroom of the other, two people related to Yuki were within listening distance. Sex was an unknown. If it was loud enough, they could be caught by an enraged, overly-protective redhead and a disturbingly dedicated erotica novelist who would ask for physical details. Yuki barely felt like he could get away with chastely kissing Tohru good night at the top of the stairs. Sometimes, in fact, he didn't, and Kyo slammed his door so hard in annoyance that it broke off the jamb.

What really stopped him was Honda Tohru herself. She was the genesis, the seed and root of everything wonderful he felt, and it seemed degrading to reduce that wonderful sensation to arousal. But then Tohru got on her tip-toes to reach for a glass in the upper cabinets, curve of the waist exaggerating and breasts thrust forward against the fabric of her shirt, and the former rat found himself staring, trying to memorize the angle, the light, the place where the contour of Tohru's breasts began to cup back toward her body, _because that peak would be where her nipples were._ And then, much later, Yuki would close his eyes in the spray of the shower and will spring to come.

It was complicated. And then came White Day their last term of high school.

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They were so busy studying for those final final exams that Yuki barely thought about Valentine's Day, let alone White Day. Girls at school sometimes still slipped chocolate in his shoe locker, anonymous now this past year since it became obvious only one person brought sunlight into his features. He put them in his bag and took them home to use as bribing tools against Shigure for future needs. The household had chocolate cake that night, and Yuki's slice had a Maraschino cherry literally on top. He didn't think about it. He should have thought about it.

He should have thought about it when Tohru, watching the night's frost creep over the edge of the windowpane, slipped her hand off of the kotatsu and rested it on his calf. His head was bent over a book about wildflowers and weeds – there was something like buttercups that had choked his strawberries at the end of last season, and he was determined to not lose his favorite yield from his garden again this year. Yuki found her hand with his thoughtlessly, joining their fingers and pressing their palms together. He thought it was what the gesture had been, what Tohru had wanted. The brunette next to him sighed and put her head on his shoulder. His first year where Valentine's Day had been a stress-free, quiet affair. Yuki almost took the peace and comfortable companionship as Tohru's gift to him.

And then he didn't think of it again until White Day, when suddenly Shigure said as he doctored his tea liberally with sugar, "What will Yuki and Tohru-kun be doing today, hm?"

Next to the dog, Kyo rolled his eyes, grunted, and grabbed an apple from the bowl on the way out of the door. Yuki, for his part, had put down his flashcards. "This is the last day of prep before exams. School." He answered deliberately, eyes narrowing in anticipation of something awful being dropped on him. "Was Shigure-san expecting something other than school to happen today?"

Shigure drained his tea in one dose, shrugged, and unfolded his paper. "It's White Day, and that was such a delicious cake Tohru-kun made. I was hoping you would thank her properly enough for all of us."

Yuki blinked. The cake, the _cake_! Now that he thought about it, it wasn't exactly cake, was it? Flourless, rich, dark, _intimate_. Nothing like the chocolate Tohru had given him along with Kyo their first Valentine's as friends. He pinned the splayed flashcards between his bent elbows on the table and suspended his forehead in his hands, pushing his hair back by the roots as if that would make him accept the implications faster. Shigure snapped the creases out of the section he had extracted from the rest of the paper. "You forgot." He commented.

Yuki responded with a groan. His head was full, or should have been full, of English irregular past and present perfect conjugations, conics, the definition of terminal velocity, and the date that the Heian Palace burned to the ground. All of it, days of preparation, gone and drained by the empty, full sound of Tohru sighing. And worst of all, it _excited_ him to consider his options while seated across the breakfast table from his goddamned cousin, who looked up from his paper after a few minutes of silence and prompted, "You should check if Tohru-kun needs help with breakfast. The two of you will run out of time."

His head smacked against the cool wood of the table, staying there for a moment before he groaned again and stood. _Eat, ate, have eaten…have, had, have had…take, took, have taken…_

At least the irregular past and present perfect conjugations had returned. To ill effect. _Conjugations as in conjugal._ God in Heaven, help him through his school day. A fisherman with a plow.

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He skipped Student Council. It was wrong of him and he regretted it, this being one of their final meetings. But when he made to leave Tohru's side after the classroom was clean, he felt her fingers curl back over his knuckles as their hands parted. With a shiver, he took her hand again and walked her out of the building with determination. Outside, it was March 14, and spring had come.

As the tower of their high school disappeared finally behind a crown of blooming cherry trees, Tohru drew closer, the strain in their joined hands and arms going loose. It was something they did, even though it didn't matter anymore what people at school knew – or even, with this being the final day before exams, what people at school thought. But the school had a semi-consecrated air around it that Tohru unconsciously created. It was where she would fulfill her promise to her mother. It was the most important place in Japan, and Yuki knew how it was to feel that way about somewhere in particular.

Tohru smiled in a breathy exhale, matching their strides until their joined hands were a buffer between the sides of their hips. "What does Yuki-kun want to do?" She asked.

It was White Day. A spasm travelled from his stomach along the slack muscles in his arm, against her hand. He couldn't look at her. He would blush like a woman, and there was absolutely no chance he would be able to say what he needed to say, think the things he needed to think, if he was going to be reduced to putty so quickly. Yuki licked his lips and said, "I thought we could take the train…" His voice drifted. He didn't know where to; he just wanted to buy time between this moment and a geographic proximity to their beds.

She hummed, returning the squeeze back to his warm palm as if his touch had been intentional. "Ueno Park – no, Oume." Yuki corrected himself. It was a little early yet for Ueno Park to be at its peak froth of pink blossoms, and it was a sight Tohru would want to share with everyone, not just him.

"Oume?" Tohru echoed, curiosity and bare anticipation leaking into her upward swoop. Yuki smiled, then, and looked at her. He had lived so long in a green world, and then come to love Tohru so wholly, that he often forgot that she did not share the same level of interest in gardening as he had. She looked beautiful.

"There's something there I want you to see." He said.

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The whole ninety-minute train ride, Tohru had her schoolbag tucked up on her lap, her hand on Yuki's knee behind it. He was beginning to feel faint. It had taken mutual cajoling, sighs of disappointment and reluctant restraint before the two of them had begun to hold hands in public, walking to and from school. It was blatant, but it separated them from Kyo, his hands shoved into his pockets, and kept the two of them grounded. Especially in the morning, Yuki tended to wander.

This was a new level. It wasn't inappropriate, per se, nor inherently sexual. Yuki could in fact seeing other couples in the same train carriage as them being far more flagrant – it was White Day, after all. But the fact that Tohru felt compelled to guard it from sight with her bag meant something, and electrified the touch like darkness. God, he wanted to be in the dark with Tohru, just to feel what it would be like to reach out to her and know the only way he'd find her was if she was reaching back…

Yuki slumped his head to the side, knocking his skull above his ear against the cool window of the train. Tohru cocked her head, her hair shifting about her shoulders in an exaggerated flick of the motion. "Sohma-kun?" She asked softly. They were on a train. He wouldn't be Yuki until they were relatively alone again.

He lifted his head to reassure her with a slow smile whose glow literally traveled down through his hand as it came to rest on top of hers on his knee. Tohru flushed, smoothing at the hem of her skirt with her free hand. "You're not tired, are you?" She muttered.

The concern was real, and Yuki shook his head. "I just wish we could get there sooner. The sun might go down before I can show Honda-san properly."

Her eyes sparkled at that, and her hand didn't move from underneath his until moments before the carriage doors opened at Oume Station.

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Yoshino Baigo, the Plum Village, was laid out on a hillside, paths snaking their way in predictable, organic patterns among the thousands of plum and cherry trees. Right now the plum trees were in full bloom, the cherry trees only beginning to rival them for beauty. In the slanted light, the white of the blossoms with their burgundy centers, fading swiftly to fuchsia, glowed like stained glass. It didn't seem real, and Tohru whispered so as they made their way to the top of the hillside to look back down the slope and toward Tokyo.

There were few people around. Unlike the parks closer to central Tokyo, Yoshino Baigo was more a place people attended for extended periods of spare time, not a school night the day before exams. It wasn't casual, and other than a few other couples at the top of the hillside, Yuki and Tohru were predominantly alone. That was a unique feeling in Tokyo – being alone, having privacy.

It must have made Yuki bold, because he gently hooked his pinky finger through one of the loops of the bow at the side of Tohru's head and tugged, bringing his mouth to her ear. "I want to plant you a garden like this," he whispered, the words clear like the spring air around them, "with beds of strawberries between the trees and a row of trees that give fruit. Peaches, plums, apples, nectarines…enough for everyone that comes over for dinner in the summer."

He felt her breath shudder and he let go of her ribbon, reestablishing the distance deliberately. Tohru looked at him with eyes that had quelled from sparkles to glazes, layers of lacquer and gloss that made the brown in them shimmer. She bit her lip. "Is… Is that all you want to do?"

Her hand was too hot, and Yuki let go of that too. "No," he said, swallowing, "but I'll tell you about the rest later."

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They returned to Shigure's house hours later than usual, and it was clear from the way Kyo skulked immediately roofward and Shigure smiled indulgently that they had been expected to be late. Tohru gasped an apology and skittered to the kitchen, fretting about a dinner that no one seemed interested in eating. Yuki took a seat at the table, features settling into a stalwart glare as his dog cousin wiggled his eyebrows. Shigure opened his mouth, but Yuki crossed his arms and said abruptly, "No."

The dog closed his mouth and then said, "You weren't prepared, were you?"

"What?"

Shigure waved his hand. "You'll see. You can pay me back later."

" _What?_ "

He was ignored, and the older man pushed away from the table and said over his shoulder, "My Little Flower, I just remembered that Aya had something planned for me today. There's no need for dinner. I'll be at the Main House if either of you need me." At which point Shigure rose, touched Yuki's stiff shoulder consolingly, threw him a lewd hand gesture, and left the house.

In his wake, Tohru emerged from the kitchen with her hands at the bow of her apron in the small of her back, hesitating at the knot. She leaned to look out the window at the road and Shigure's dim figure in the twilight, another pose she often fell into that made Yuki all too aware of too many things. He got up from the table and, ignoring Tohru's evident curiosity, worked his hands between hers to get at the bow to untie it. "Don't forget," he said, "I have strange relatives."

She whipped around, catching the apron as it fell away from her skirt. "Yuki-kun! They're good people. All of you are."

He looped his arms around her hips. "I like that you still believe that, after everything we've shown you." He said, "Yes, I have a good family. But you have to admit, they're fairly strange." He was smiling as he spoke, and Tohru leaned into his embrace – something instinctive for her and, though chaste, undeniably pleasing to him.

She set the apron on the table next to them. "I like how different you all are." She said, voice lowering as she went on her toes, arms around Yuki's shoulders and neck. "But Yuki-kun especially."

And without any seeming formality, Tohru kissed him, lips parted in invitation.

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This had not happened before, he thought as he met her mouth with his own. Oh, the kissing certainly, and there was something painfully familiar beginning to happen in the general vicinity of his stomach. But kissing had always felt contrived, something that they did because it was the thing to do. Perhaps, Yuki thought as he tilted his head and tightened the grip on Tohru's waist, that was because up until this particular moment, they had not been really _trying_ to kiss each other.

This was different – or maybe he was perceiving it as different simply because he had further intentions than kissing. To be fair, it was hard to contemplate when the woman he loved desperately was drawing away from him, gasping in air, and then reapplying herself to the kissing. He had never heard her breathe like that, so close to him. There were whole pitches, chords in the way Tohru gasped that he had not heard before, and they ran like fingertips down his spine to join the general tingling in his stomach. He licked his tongue experimentally behind Tohru's teeth, along the curve, and earned something better than a gasp in reward.

Tohru moaned, or hummed, or something between. It didn't matter what it was, only that it was definitely the final straw that got him hard. Enough that he took a step back, suddenly addicted to the soft noise their mouths made when separating. Tohru opened her eyes – had she closed them? He wouldn't know; he'd closed his. "Yuki-kun?" She said, and it was like the normal, girlish half of her voice was gone, and all that remained was the music and the breath.

Bad. She couldn't know what it did. Yuki hesitated and then answered, "Please excuse me. I'm not…" Her mouth seemed completely different to him, even visually, and he was having difficulty focusing when she kept breathing through it. "I don't want to force anything on you." He finished, feeling ashamed and weak. Tohru meant so much more than whatever his hard-on was trying to tell him, and it didn't seem a good enough way to convey it.

Tohru's eyebrows rose, her face darkening like the early bloom of a rosebud. She took a step forward to compensate for Yuki's previous step back. It was something she did – reaching father than anyone should, for someone who shied away from her touch – in all parts of her life. But it had never made Yuki's chest hurt like it did now, when her arms slung around his neck again. She whispered, "Yuki, what makes you think it's something I don't want?"

He shivered deep inside, something that made his muscles tense and his blood sweeten. It wasn't the first time she had called him Yuki, but it was the first time she had done so in that voice of breath and music. He said, "I know you read one of Shigure's books. It's not like it seems."

He thought of staring down at his own hand, the shower pounding water on the base of his head, and imagining it as hers. Of ejaculating, the mess. It was far from romantic. Yuki lowered his eyes away from her face, hiding in the pale thicket of his eyelashes. "It's disgusting." He murmured.

There was a pause, and then Tohru's face was tucked against his, lips pressed to his cheek in front of his ear. Her fingers burrowed gradually into the hair on the back of his head, where the shower water would be, and she said, "It's something I want to try, with you." And then the confidence in her voice faltered, the girlish note returned: "If Yuki-kun wants to."

His response was to turn his face, twist his neck to find her mouth again with his.

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They went to his bedroom. Though his bed was smaller than the pink, ruffled plinth Shigure had purchased for Tohru, it was for the best. He wanted Tohru to have her bed to return to if things went badly.

Apparently, Shigure felt the same way, because waiting for them on the end of Yuki's bed was a smattering of condoms and what looked like a disposable camera. Yuki would have crushed the latter in his fist if he had room in his brain to think about it any further other than to shove it off of his bed into the pile of laundry. The condoms he disposed of likewise, but only after curling one into his hand and pushing it into his pocket.

He turned back to Tohru, holding out his hands to her. She was lingering by the doorway like a stranger, as if she had not gotten him up in the mornings, made his bed, and cooled his forehead when he was sick. She did too much for him to treat his room like foreign territory, and Yuki navigated through the books and laundry scattered on his floor to guide her. He took her hands. He wanted to know what she was thinking, beneath the flush on her skin and the cascade of hair that fell over her shoulders and breasts. "What did Shigure's book say we should do?" He asked. If only to draw her attention to the present.

Tohru bit her lip. "It was hard to follow sometimes. It talked a lot about essences and flowers. Do you know what 'turgid' means?"

Her answer surprised him enough that a chuff of laughter broke from him. "I do. It means hard and swollen, like a bee sting. But flowers and essences… I always thought he would be more graphic."

She tilted her head, sat next to him on the edge of the bed. "You've never read anything Shigure-san's written?"

Her face was bright with genuine curiosity, and Yuki forgot their intentions. He said, "No, of course not! I'd rather stay away from that mutt's sexual fantasies. Even if they are surprisingly poetic."

Tohru said, "Ah, I hadn't thought of that! When I read Shigure-san's books, it was more because they were in the house than he had written them. I didn't want to go to the school library and ask for a book about…"

Her face clouded with embarrassment again, and her voice drifted along with her hand, which slipped free of his and slid to his knee. Yuki went still, trying to take deep, quiet breaths. Everything seemed to have an implication now, and her fingers were so close to his crotch. Tohru said, looking down, "Is it really like a bee sting?"

Oh, God in Heaven, she was looking at him. At his stupid erection that had almost lost its vigor until the moment she put her hand on his leg. Yuki failed to breathe deeply or quietly, choking on air before managing to respond, "No. It doesn't hurt."

But her hand was already moving upward, and her head craned forward like she was looking from a distance. Oh God. Panic moved him before sense did, and Yuki caught her hand. "Wait," he said, "I want to be fair."

Tohru looked up at him, her body leaned forward across his. He could see the soft slack in her uniform's shirt where her breasts made a valley between them. This was a lot more difficult than he ever expected, and stranger. Yuki licked his lips nervously and said, "I mean, I only know how to make _me_ feel good." He let go of her hand. "I don't know what Shigure's book said, but it's more like popcorn than anything. It… There's only so much that can be done to it before it, I… And then it's done."

She said, "What, forever?" And Yuki let out a chuff of laughter in spite of himself. "I almost wish that was true. No, not forever. But there's twenty minutes or so before it could start again."

He avoided her eyes and continued, feeling the burn of his embarrassment on his skin: "And I might be...quick to finish. Then I can't do anything with you for a while, together. That's what I mean. I want to be fair."

Tohru's hand was on his shoulder, and she pressed against him to kiss his cheek and, when he looked up, his mouth. "That's perfect," she said softly, "because I only know what makes _me_ feel good. Just… I'll tell you what to do, and you tell me, right?"

Yuki shuddered, lost in the revelation that Tohru knew what made her feel good and the sensation of her body against his, even with their clothes on. His muscles felt light and agile, suddenly, and his stomach had transcended tingling into downright molten excitement. A fisherman with a plow. But what if the ground told him what to do…

It was so easy, somehow, to wrap his arm around Tohru's waist and tug her on top of him, to crash their mouths together because his body was so light, now, that he needed her to weigh him down. He moved faster than he thought, and for once his life, not particularly gracefully. Tohru's knee jabbed his thigh before sliding off onto the bed, and he grunted as her weight plopped down on his lap. That definitely hurt, but it also felt so _good_ that he snapped his arms back on the bad to catch him before he fell back.

Tohru had squeaked into his mouth when he moved her, but now she just angled her head and scoot forward, splaying her fingers on his shoulders. Her skirt rode up, and she was hot against him everywhere. Even with just this, just their bodies tumbled together, Yuki didn't think he'd see her the same again. He'd always know how _hot_ she was, to the touch.

They might be getting out of their depth with the kissing, though. There was too much to take in all at once, and their lips went loose and still against each other as Tohru reached down between them and ran her fingertips over his fly.

It felt like nothing. To him, at least. Tohru exhaled. He opened his eyes to see hers, wide as the sky and so close that he thought he saw his whole universe in the backs of her pupils. Her fingers lifted, then drew across again with more confidence. That _did_ feel like something, like Tohru touching something that touched something that touched his penis, and Yuki curled forward, sliding his face from Tohru's to her neck and shoulder. How did that feel like more than his hand ever had?

She whispered, amazed, as her palm settled onto his crotch, "It's actually hard. I thought that was Shigure-san exaggerating, like the flowers." Yuki lay an open-mouthed kiss against the edge of her collar, gulping back a sigh as her palm smoothed over him. "You mean you don't have a flower?" He asked, his lips curving irrepressibly. "That ruins it. I was just going to garden." His hands cupped the ridges of her bra on her back underneath her shirt. He shouldn't have joked, but it had ripped free from his mind like a dandelion in the wind.

Tohru giggled behind his ear, her other hand now on his chest, over his heart. "No, it doesn't ruin it." She shifted her weight to the back of her pelvis, pressing down on his leg. He wondered if this was what sex did, if having her hand on him was all it took to make them flirt with all the casual comfort of a normal couple. More fluff from the dandelion flew away. "May I?" He asked, fingers drawing the lines of her bra straps over the pliant surface of her back.

As an answer, she leaned back far enough to pull her uniform over her head. Her bra was white, even against her skin, with a tiny rosebud and bow between the cups. Yuki wanted to lick it in a sudden powerful impulse, but instead he rested his hands at her hips, her skirt, and went back to their kissing. It was she, gasping with her knees pressing into the outside of his legs, that brought his hands up to her breasts, rolling back her shoulders as his thumbs swept the curved upper line of the cups. Her hands dangled between them, idly spreading the pads of her fingers down the line of his erection, leaving sparks behind them. And for a while, they simply floated together.

His shirt was next, then her bra in a quick, oddly graceful movement of straps and Tohru's arms that distracted his eyes so that, by the time his overwhelmed and rosy brain realized this meant Tohru was _topless_ , she had already slid forward on his lap, straddling him with her chest against his. They had stopped kissing, but he'd lost track of when they would leave it and then pick it up again. The taste of her was as natural now as breathing.

He didn't dare look down at her breasts, though he felt her nipples stiff against his skin. Instead, he looked at the crown of her head, the bridge of her nose, and her eyelashes which were usually so hard to see but now seemed to make her eyes waver like a mirage. She was looking at their chests for him, the muscles in the backs of her thighs squeezing and then slackening over and over like some great body of water was bringing in a tide over his knees…

"Yuki," Tohru said faintly, her voice muffled by their skin. He hummed to acknowledge her, but she didn't say anything else. He could have sworn it sounded like a question. The hands that had been on his erection had moved, but his hands had moved around as well, and he didn't want to point it out. It was a relief to not be touched, if only as a moment of control. He felt distant and a little stupid, like it was New Year's and he'd had too much of the _sake_ Haru kept pushing onto him.

And then she raised her head and adjusted the angle of her hips, a smile tinting her next sigh. Her body escaped the shadow of his, and Yuki's eyes dropped to the movement as automatically as any nocturnal creature of prey. Down, sliding along her skin in the gap between her breasts – her nipples were the color of orchids, though he couldn't recall which species because – to her hand, disappearing underneath the crumpled hem of her skirt.

"Oh," said Yuki, and lost control.

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Of all moments for martial arts training to manifest, now was not the time. But in a long drip from the top of his throat to the arches of his feet, astonishment and panic mixed into reflex, and everything flipped directions as he rolled Tohru from on top of him to on her back on the bed, pinned. In a martial arts sense. Tohru released a huff of air, her eyes wide and her legs open around his. "Yuki-kun?" She said. Her fingers unwrapped from around his arms, where she'd grabbed when he turned her.

Yuki's face was burning. He lifted his hands off the points of her hips and said shakily, "I'm sorry, I didn't know that would happen."

She hung her arms around his neck, like it was strange to not touch him. "What _did_ happen?" She asked, as if she didn't know, and that tore an incredulous laugh from his lips. "You were-! … I was surprised." He replied, swallowing back what he'd seen with a thick gulp. Her open, trusting expression made his face burn hotter, and he mumbled again, "I'm so sorry."

"I don't mind," Tohru offered, her face reflecting his flush and her eyes dropping to just below his, "I think this is how it's supposed to be? Shigure-san's books said…" Her gaze unfocused, a line appearing between her brows as she recited with all the sincerity of Modern Japanese in class: "'she felt the weight of his body above hers, parting her and filling her, and she tossed back her head with his name on her lips.'"

Yuki said weakly, "He writes from the woman's perspective?" It was about all he could focus on without expiring of sheer mortification and arousal. Tohru nodded, and the two of them lapsed into contemplative silence.

With the distance and the swath of light between them now, he could see everything, from the bunching of her hair behind her head to the smooth, secret joint of her arm to her chest, where the curve of her breast began. And her face, pink and tipped up toward his, seeming to grow larger and larger as the reality of Tohru Honda, half-naked with damp fingertips settled behind his ribs. Yuki's fingers screwed themselves into the bedding on either side of her waist.

"You're astounding, you know." He whispered. She inhaled, eclipsed by his body, but he felt in his hands her back arch away from the bed. Reaching for him, even though her arms were already clasped around his neck in an embrace. Like no one ever had. She wanted him, soft as new soil. The ground signaling through snowmelt that it was spring, and it was time to plow.

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Spring had apparently come for the both of them, prepared or not. Their bodies had gone ahead with whatever was needed, Yuki swiftly learned. At this point his clothes were downright uncomfortable, and as he unzipped the sideseam of Tohru's skirt – years of forced crossdressing finally working in his favor – he discovered that the same was true for her. He tried not to stare at the darkened spot on her underwear when she twisted to turn off the light next to his bed. Then, in the dim from the window and the hall light from underneath his door, he watched the pale-lined fingers of Tohru's hands slide her underwear down her legs. There was barely anything to see, even for a nocturnal animal such as he was, but he stared anyway, frozen over her.

Tohru said, "Yuki-kun?" Her hand reached out for his, and he took it. He thought she'd weave their fingers together, like they usually would, but instead she coaxed him closer, back between her legs. He knew where she was putting him, but he still wasn't ready for the texture of hair and – his finger curled instinctively, trying to place itself through touch. Tohru's breath hitched, then sighed.

He hadn't expected the living pressure of her, the heat and wetness that he thought he'd accepted from external evidence but had grossly underestimated. When Tohru rose up to kiss him, everything twisted around his finger inside of her, and his electrocuted brain couldn't understand how it had all changed so much without escaping the laws of reality.

And as he turned his finger around, crooked and trying to reestablish equilibrium, she clung to his shoulders and shuddered, whole gardens unfurling in the rich humidity of her gasps. "Yuki," she said faintly, as she had before, and his breath caught in his throat like he was still an asthmatic child.

"Yes?"

"You can – mm… add more, if you want." Yuki obliged, and when he uncurled his middle finger, his knuckle skimmed over a place above his first finger that made Tohru's hips jerk and her voice keen. The very sensitive part, some deep-seated remnant of sexual education reminded; the part that made her feel good. He repeated the motion with his knuckle and then turned his hand palm up, his thumb finding the nub as his middle finger joined his first inside of her. Tohru let out an exclamation, her hips adjusting suddenly to his hand the pad of his thumb rested squarely on the sensitive part. He circled it, and she turned her face into his neck in the dark and moaned.

For a while, encouraged by the ceaseless wonder that was Tohru's voice whispering his name, Yuki reconciled himself with the fact that he was getting his girlfriend off. At least, if felt like a while – several epochs, with an entire dynasty when she pressed an abstract kiss into his collar bone – but when he emerged from it, the digital clock by his bed thought it'd only been a few minutes, and his erection hadn't had the good grace to know it had outstayed its welcome.

Tohru was gently extracting his hand from her body, thumb settled into the cup of his upturned palm. She sat up, and they barely missed cracking their heads together as he flinched back out of habit. Her fingers skimmed stripes off his shoulders, down his arms, and vanished into the dark. Yuki swallowed. "You didn't… did you?" He asked. Even as a mumble, his voice sounded alien and too loud.

"No, not yet." She said with a tinge of apology. "Yuki-kun said he wanted it to be fair, so..." Her hands reappeared, hooked into the top edge of his belt like he had tugged at her hair ribbons in the park. "…tell me what to do, please." She finished, her voice getting smaller.

He went still, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. "Alright." He said, and straightened up onto his knees to dig the condom out from his pocket. He'd never put one on before, and he swiveled toward the light to see. His heart pounding, Yuki fumbled first with the condom, then with his own body with growing sense of horror. Tohru waited wordlessly, and a glace in her direction indicated that she was pointedly looking somewhere else.

But it was worth it, _worth it_ as he found his way inside of her. Tohru's body gripped him, wet and glowing with heat in the dark. He wasn't even that far in, as her hand told him as she reached down to grasp him, the motion hurried and not particularly gentle. It shoved his erection deeper into her, and it was like putting his hand into a hot spring. But that wasn't important, because the motion also made Tohru whimper, and her hand held him as she pushed herself farther up the bed with her heels, off him. The pitch of her breathing was high. "H—Honda-san?" Yuki asked. His lip hurt – had he been biting it?

"It hurt. I'm sorry." Her voice was even higher and strained.

"Oh." Yuki said, alarmed. He sat back onto his heels, everything numb in comparison to the cold remnants of what it meant to be inside of Tohru. He swallowed, hard, and said, "I'm sorry too. I didn't mean to… Do you want to stop?"

He felt Tohru slowly slide back underneath him, and he cupped his hand to her face to feel for tears. "We can stop." He repeated, his heart in his throat. Tohru lifted her hand and, slowly, combed his hanging hair back from his forehead to behind his ear. Yuki shuddered.

"I don't want to stop." She whispered. "I think I just need to show you. And maybe we just…" Her voice cut off as her hand went from Yuki's head to his erection, such as it was. "Oh," she said, and then leveraged herself up to kiss him.

At that point, with her palm cradling his shaft, the sharpness of Yuki's panic went dull and then slipped away. He wasn't thinking, couldn't think as Tohru's legs twined with his and he drifted from sensation to sensation of the warmth and pressure of Tohru's skin on his own until he was inside of her, hard and stupid and happy and _desperate_ as Tohru Honda, her dark hair flowing over his fingers, broke her mouth from his and said, "You can move." Like if he didn't, she would burst. So he did.

And what was left of what Yuki understood as time and reality melted like snow on thawed ground.

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And then it was over. He rolled off of Tohru to beside her, his skin tingling like it was too small. She turned onto her side to face him, and he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her because he could, because Tohru relaxed into his embrace with the best rendition of his name yet. Around them, the house was quiet. Yuki whispered against Tohru's lips, "Did you finish?"

She answered, "No, but, if you don't mind…" He felt her legs bend and her arm move. She finished shyly, "…would you hold me?"

Yuki kissed his assent, then said, "I have do something first." He sat up, peeled off the condom while trying not to think about it, and wadded it into a tissue from his nightstand because Kakeru-san was always wiggling his eyebrows and saying something about tissues. Then he was back above Tohru, her hands on top of his on her breasts and her breath inside of his chest. And there he was when, a few minutes later, Tohru's hips lifted into the ministrations of her hand, and she cried out into the curve of his shoulder. It was better than what had come before, knowing what Tohru Honda sounded like, looked like. Next time, he was going to find out what she felt like.

It was growing season.

 **Research: If you have read me before, you know that I have placed Shigure's house in Western Tokyo, in Higashiyamato or Musashimurayama (basically two neighboring areas that both border a lake). The parks in the fic are real (Ueno being far more famous than Yoshino Baigo), the former in Ueno, go figure, the latter in Oume. It's strange; Yoshino Baigo looks a lot like a famous park in my city, Observatory Park… cherry and plum trees and hillside and winding gravel paths and all.**

 **The research I did, though. The train lines, even what time the sun set in Oume on March 14 of 2018 (5:47 pm, folks). The availability of popcorn in Japan. Sex education in Japan. Uniforms. The seasons of fruit. A question that jumped straight to top 10 of strangest academic studies I have searched for: "statistics of female body hair removal in Japan." All to get Yuki and Tohru to orgasm.**

… **You're welcome?**

 **Also, just for general sex education purposes: penetrative sex shouldn't hurt. Not even the first time. Not ever. If it hurts, stop, back off, and regroup. Breaking the hymen is not a requirement for losing your vaginal virginity. Tell your partner if it hurts! Be respectful of your partner saying it hurts and stop! You will have your whole adult life to have sex, really good sex, and there's no rush to have an orgasm if it's at the expense of the enjoyment of your partner. Believe me when I say less painful alternates are just as good, and your partner will be more likely to feel comfortable trying again in the future. There are tons of excellent resources available to you online that discuss sex frankly and thoroughly. If you are of age, which you should be if you're at the bottom of this 18+ story, I strongly encourage you to go check them out, regardless of what genitalia you're equipped with. Let's treat our and each other's bodies with care, please!**


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